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Thursday, September 27, 2012

Lord of the Rings Online: The rise of Cothbert Defender of the Shire

Still trying to narrow down my choice of characters in Lord of the Rings Online I have take to rolling various classes I think I would like and taking them to 20 or so.

I had played the Guardian class before (the game's token tanking class) and had indeed had many races as well. Dwarf, Hobbit, Man and even Elf.

I had never gotten a Guardian too far so this time around, with a deeper more researched knowledge of the game, I wanted to level a Guardian and see if there was any of the ole "tanking flame" left in me. My stint as a tank in World of Warcraft had worn me thin and I had pretty much burned out on even trying one in any other game.

I knew that I needed at least one Hobbit on my roster so Guardian it was and Cothbert was born. With all my five year old account goodies and Riders of Rohan pre order stuff I knew I could make him look pretty cool. I have not been that enamored with the Burglar thus far so decided to put more time in on the tanking role.

I also wanted to do ALL quests in the Shire and not skip any and this was simply the best way. With my other characters I was bouncing around all over the place as there is a LOT to do in this game.

With my Captain and Warden now at level 17 I had some catching up to do but what is another 3-4 hours anyway? I had time to kill.

Cothbert at creation. So new and inexperienced:

The horrors of what happened at Archet and in the Shire to start his adventures made him quite battle hardened. He even lost an eye in the process. As such he is one of the less merry Hobbits you may see come out of the Shire.

His first foray into the wild unknown was not unlike any other Hobbit out there. He had to prove himself to the Bounders and to the citizens who of course didn't want to see any trouble. But Cothbert had it in him to be greater than Bilbo and so he went into the chest of his great grandfather, pulled out the armor handed down through generations and took it upon himself to seek out adventure. The inhabitants of the Shire had many duties to be done and were generally too lazy to do them.

No Hobbit can start an adventure without looking good and Cothbert certainly fit that bill.

The first thing he had to do was gain contacts. Insider information about where he could get into trouble and prove how heroic he was. The first stop was Michel Delving. He asked around but could only find work with the local Postmaster. So it was that Cothbert, the great Defender of the Shire, started out on his career doing the dangerous task of....delivering mail.